Give Me Your All
by Phamenia
Summary: Tino became a slave from coming to the New World, from Finland. It was unintentional, but things happen. While trying to disobey his cruel owner, Tino is saved by a man...a big one at that. SuFin.
1. Chapter 1

**Long time no see. . . I recently came up with a new plot and I just wanted to see if it would work. It's kind of, not really, based on a book. Kind of not really means it is but isn't. I hope you get it. I will not name the book because I changed the whole plot. It's a war book, American Revolution one. BUT, I changed it to Olden-ish-kind of-not really, time and instead of war, it is a everyday romance book. The plot might be overused but I like re-reading a plot-line again. Well then, I hope you enjoy, and_ review~ _**

**Warning : Even though it's based on a American Revolution, doesn't mean America is going to be in it. . . ahaa -heart-**

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><p>Tino pressed his nose against the coarse linsey-woolsey of his sleeve. He breathed in deeply. It was the first time in almost a year that it hadn't stunk of horsehair, dirt, straw, and leftover grease from wiping dinner off his lips. He kept his face buried in the fabric. It smelled instead of lye soap, of clean, of the warm sun that had dried it.<p>

Tino dropped his arm to look across the river, swollen and muddy from May rains. His mother had made him the shirt two years ago, right before they left Finland for the New World. Now it was barely long enough to protect his backside from the scratch of his breeches. It was well made, though, twenty tiny stitches to an inch in the seams. And it was clean. Silly, he knew, but somehow the feeling of clean gave Tino a sense of rebirth.**  
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Standing atop a bluff overlooking the river, Tino saw an amethyst flower. Soft purple petals swaying softly in the wind, the sun making the color aglow, seemingly translucent. It was in fact, the same color of Tino's eyes – a veiled, barely there violet.

His father had hated the paleness of Tino's eyes. When irritated, he'd curse them as bewitched and lily-livered. Tino could judge the souls of strangers by the reactions to his eyes. Those with meanness inside smirked. Those afraid of devils looked away. Kindness smiled. His mother had said, "They're color of amethyst and mist mixed together, as the world could look upon beautiful jewels, my son. Those be your eyes – the promise of beauty."

She was like that, his mother. Her own eyes had been the brilliant hue of Saffron Crocus, abloom with springlike hope, always believing in possibilities. Even during their month-long voyage across the sea to the New World – while they and seventy other passengers clung to the below-deck posts of the merchant ship lurching through the storm after storm during the winter – she held fast to his father's promise of the faraway colonies being a place of dream to be had for the taking. She believed even as she lay dying of ship fever.

" 'Love _hopes _ all things,' " she quoted Corinthians from the bible, the one book Tino's family possessed.


	2. Chapter 2

A breeze brushed Tino's face and ruffled is white-blonde hair, lifting it to dance in the air – another unfamiliar feeling of clean. He'd been startled after scrubbing himself with the lye to look down into the barrel of water and to see the reflection of such fair skin and hair, bleached by the Virginia sun. Grimy for so long, he'd forgotten what he really looked like.

Tino took another deep breath, this time pulling in the sweet smells of new bloom, of greening grasses. There had been a wild hailstorm earlier in the month that destroyed all the peach blossoms and sent the plantation's owner into a fit about the loss of peach brandy for the year. But now the earth was in full blossom, joyfully shaking itself awake , spewing out millions of flowers in field and trees. Tino looked back up to the gulls. He wondered if they rejoiced in the festival of color beneath them.

When the breeze rustled his hair and shirt again, Tino felt a hesitant happiness creep through him. He closed his eyes and held his arms out, imagining just as he had when he was a small boy. The wind picked up a bit, flapping his billowy sleeves. He willed his feet to lift up off the ground, his arms to sprout feathers. He could almost feel himself float on the pale blue air of soft breezes, delicious new-life smells, and fledgling possibilities.

Today was the day that would change his circumstances. Perhaps today, he could brave hoping for his own spring.

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"All right sir, let's see what you have to offer," Spoke a voice behind Tino.

Tino dropped his gaze to his bare feet, waiting. Two long shadows slid across the clover toward him. A well-polished set of boots came into view alongside a set of fat, cracked shoes with tarnished buckles.

"What? This? This here? This be nothing but a runt of a lad."

Tino lost the scent of new bloom in the stench of rum, garlic, and sweat the men carried. His heart began to pound.

One of them rattled papers as he spoke: "He's thirteen years of age, Mr. Owen. He'll grow into your needs. Remember he had eight years more on his indenture until he turns twenty-one. If you purchase a grown man's time, you only have him four years. Price is eleven pounds, his cost of passage from Finlan'. If you want a strong slave, like that one, it'll cost you upwards of sixty pounds." The man pointed to Tino's friend, Mathias, who stood nearby amongst a group of slaves. He was sixteen but tall and strong, and could handle a hogshead of tobacco on his own.

"Hmmmm..." Own growled. He grabbed Tino's arms and squeezed, looking for muscle. "Blacksmithing is hard work, boy. I need someone to stoke my fires, carry water, sort scraps of iron. You've no mean on you." He began testing Tino's legs.

Tino tried to keep from recoiling from the brushing, sausage-thick fingers. It'd been like this at that other place. People checking him like a piece of clothing, touching and trying on. He was once taken by a store owner, but truth is, the owner was a gambler and lost everything. So here he is, going to be sold once again.

All he eats is barely a piece of stale bread and cup of soup. The only kindness done them had been the recent laundering to make them presentable, because all them, along with everything in the estate – the house, the acres, the clothes, shoes, feather beds, pot, pans, and hoes – were up for sale to pay off the master's debts.

"Any pestilence about him?"

"No. He's fit. They say he is exceedingly good with horses. Useful for a blacksmith, I thought." The man holding papers was clearly an auctioneer, assigned to market the plantation's human merchandise.

Owen grunted. He seized Tino's jaw and twisted it around so that sunlight fell full on his face. Prying Tino's mouth open, Owen stuck a filthy finger in and counted his teeth, lingering over the one in the back that had just finished growing.

"Well, they look sound." He shoved Tino aside and wiped his hand on his jacket. "If nothing else, if I work him to death, I can sell those teeth. There's a surgeon in Norfolk giving forty shillings a tooth. I'd make a profit." Owen jabbed the auctioneer with an elbow and guffawed.

The auctioneer straightened his waistcoat and asked coldly, "Do you want him?"

"Aye, he'll do for something. But I'll only pay seven pound for him."

Tino's heart sank. This man seemed worse then the store owner. _No! Say it's not enough coin. Make him go away!_

The auctioneer thought a moment. "Nine."

"Eight and ten shilling."

"Agreed." The auctioneer made a note in his papers. Tino fought off fainting.

"Right then," said Owen. "Let me see what horseflesh you have. Come, boy." He shoved Tino to walk abreast him.

_Hopes all things?_

Only fools hoped. Hope made life's disappointments hurt the more. Hope is what had brought him to bondage.

Owen hadn't even asked Tino's name. And he certainly hadn't looked him in the eye. That was the other kind of reaction to Tino's eyes – none – born of such indifference to his existence as a human being that a person never saw them because they never bothered to look Tino in the face.


	3. Chapter 3 Part one

Miserable, Tino trudged toward the stable, listening to the heavy, grunting bearthing of his new master. From sideways glances, he saw that Owen, was a massive man, with a lot of weight to pull along on gout-inflamed legs. He dared a backward look toward Emil. His friend was being questioned by a man in a fine frock coat with silver braiding and lace sleeves dangling beneath the cuffs. Emil would be all right, then. Such a richly dressed gentleman had to be a merchant or such. It was sure to be better than the circumstances to which he was headed.

Tino swallowed hard. It'd been Emil who'd convinced him to eat, to breathe when he's nearly died of greif ar first coming to the plantation. Emil had a large goodness about him. The smaller slave boys used to skip along with him, like devoted puppies. Remarkably tall, Emil had a tiny toy puffin his mother gave him when she had to sew things for a living. He claimed it as one of the biggest reasons he had to live. For Mr. Puffin.

Tino felt his heart hurting, he just started teaching Emil the alphabet, scratching letters in the sand down by the river after their chores were completed. Oh how dearly Tino will miss him..

The two of them had discussed the possibility of being separared this day. Emil seemed resigned to it. Many years before , he had been sold away from his family. All Emil remembered of his father – who'd been a "saltwater slave," stolen directly from West Africa – were his gold earrings.

"It's the way of it," Emil had said. "But it won't be forever, Tino. We hear about good men talking on liberty, breaking with the king. If they be aruguing against their master they see it wrong to use us the way they do."

Tino, Owen, and the auctioneer passed the manor house, a rectangular, brick building of two stories and long windows, with a commander's view of the river. In front of the door was a crowd of people as if it were a market day. A man waddled down the stone steps, bracing a huge basket filled with china against his legs. In the drive, a wagon was being filled with delicately made chairs. Several slaves balanced rolled- up Perisan carpets atop their heads, following a gentleman whose arms gleamed with a mass of candlesticks.

An older, gawky man struggled to toss a sack stuffed with leather-bound books up into a two-wheel, bright green riding chair. Tino noticed that the carriage horse fretted and shied away from the man, who foolishly flapped his arms and grabbed at the harness, further flustering the horse.

_That one would be fortunate to make it home in one piece, _Thought Tino. _He knows naught about horses._

In the past year, Tino had come to know almost everything about houses. He's fed them, brushed them, soothed them when the farrier hammered in their shoes, soaked their sore sports after races, walked them to health when their guts twisted up in colic. He's happily slept in the hayloft of the finely build stables . Even in the winter, it wasn't so bad. He's burrow into the straw like a field mouse and sleep just fine, listening to the comforting sound of the horses munching their hay. Sometimes he crept into the stalls and curled up against the mares that had just had their foals taken from them for training. He seemed to calm their anxiety at losing their offspring , as if they regarded him as just another colt in need of care.

The head groom often commented on Tino's way with the animals. Tino didn't know from where the instinct came. He never had a horse of his own. That was far too much of a blessing for his poor family. But back in Finland, his father had worked for a saddler and harness maker. Tino steadided the horses being fitted, even when he was so young his head had barely reached the horse's chest.

That'd been his father's dream – to serve his indentureship with a saddler and then set up his own shop.

**Bad way to end it, but this is sort of just part one...Hello everyone. I'm back once again! I will have to notify you, I will update once in lifetime. I gain interest for two days, LONG TIME on no interest. Yeah. I'm not dedicated in writing. I just remembered TODAY (yes, I typed this in about 15 minutes (NOT EXAGGERATED) so NO BETA) that this story exsisted. So I just wanted to let you know a chapter will be posted, this being part one. Yay. Now I must sleep. I an tired and my hands hurt from fast typing :C **


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